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Happy Augustine’s Birthday!
November 13 is the birthday of Augustine, and now you know. Something else you know is that the near future looks like a terrible mess. Let’s know the past while we work on fixing that. Augustine ain’t as important as or insightful as the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels, but he sure does top your average Greek philosopher. The purpose of life is not money, power, fame, or physical pleasures; it’s the love of G-d and neighbor.
That’s all I got for the moment. I have a new book on Augustine coming out, and I’ll try to do a few posts on that later. For now, I’ll just give you this link to my first (and cheap) Augustine book, and this nifty tip on the subject of its third chapter:
Augustine’s second surviving book features a conversation held on his birthday in Cassiciacum, near Milan. They use his birthday meal as an opportunity to talk about the meaning of life. There’s some Stoicism stuff, some Plato stuff, and most importantly some Bible stuff that’s not exactly 100% compatible with the Stoicism and Plato stuff. It’s a short and delightful little philosophy/theology book. The book is called De Beata Vita, On the Happy Life.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
My birthday is in February, but thank you! I can accept such wishes in November.
So stick with that argument. That‘s the one that matters. That’s much more important than whether Augustine was a Catholic. That’s the argument that I should be one!
So your premise is that there’s a succession of Popes from Peter, and your conclusion is that the Catholic Church is correct in its claims to be in charge of all Christendom, to have an infallible Magisterium, and so on?
How am I supposed to get to that conclusion from that premise? I don’t understand.
Nor have I. What are you talking about?
Of course the word “catholic” was in use, but why change the subject? That’s not the issue.
The issue is whether the entity to which we now refer as the Roman Catholic Church–the denomination headquartered in Rome, making certain claims about its own authority, and so on–is the same thing as the church of the days of Paul, Cyprian, Augustine, Boethius, etc.
I don’t believe that it is. I don’t know of any reason I should. You have yet to give me a reason.
There is no way for me to prove that in one post or a series of posts. I’m going to give you links.
On the succession of popes from Peter.
On the primacy among bishops of the Bishop of Rome.
Excerpts from Church Fathers on the centrality of the Catholic Church.
I would also recommend, Four Witness: The Early Church in Her Own Words by Rod Bennett, and The Early Church Was the Catholic Church by Joe Heshmeyer.
And you can watch this vlog cast on Did the early Church have popes?
Much better. Nicely done.
Had I world enough and time, I would want to look at all of this thoroughly. Maybe I can at least add one of those books to an Amazon list.
But let’s take one sample of the reasoning–as much as I can manage at the moment.
This is precisely incorrect. Yes, all the essentials given by Christ to his Church must remain. They must still be with in his Church, yes. And they are–in the written Scriptures.
But the authority of Peter is the authority to write Scripture, and that is precisely what we agree does not continue to his heirs.
Are you saying that Peter gave Matthew, Luke, and John the authority to write the Gospels? I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
No, Jesus gave them the authority.
Actually I just found my old paper. It was about Augustine’s Spirit and the Letter. It looks like I didn’t remember it correctly. Augustine wasn’t one of the ones who read the texts in the way I mentioned. I think I was actually thinking of others like Origen. However, in the paper I did accuse Augustine of imposing a “foreign problematic” on the text. But in the paper I wrote, that foreign problematic turned out to be a conception of justification which I didn’t think was correct. Namely, he thought Pauline “justification” consisted of the working of the law. This is a typical Catholic understanding of justification, and not the type of foreign interpretation I had been thinking of.
Why call that a foreign problematic instead of just saying he didn’t quite understand Paul properly?
Good question! I’m trying to go through the paper and understand what I wrote. It was 30 years ago! However, I do remember that some of those other church fathers really did impose foreign …meaning Greek philosophical…issues on the text.
Surprise, surprise. St. Augustine turns out to be Catholic.
No, Evangelical Protestants misunderstand Paul. When Paul is talking about “works of the law” in Romans, he is referring to the ritual laws of the Old Testament, That is ritual laws only. He is not talking about ethical laws of doing good and of sin of omission. I won’t say all Protestants, because I don’t know, you’ve got so much variation, but certainly the Evangelicals I have encountered completely misunderstand this. Otherwise, the Good Samaritan’s work is meaningless to his inheriting eternal life, which is what the lawyer first asks Jesus: “”Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Or the commandments of Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats, is meaningless: the goats who did not perform the works are cast into the fire.
If you want to understand the Catholic position on works of the law, let me give you two former Protestants turned Catholic: Dr. Taylor Marshall in “What did St Paul mean by Faith and Works of the Law?” and who I consider the premier Catholic apologist, Jimmy Akin, “The Works of the Law.”
And if you just want a four minute video, Akin explains it here.
The Evangelical Protestant notion of “once saved, always saved” is a derived notion of misreading “works of the law” and frankly not Biblical. It’s absurd if you ask me.
I wasn’t saying otherwise.
But I’m willing to if there is a need.
There probably is a need then.
Can you state just what you think is the evangelical position with which you are disagreeing?
I wouldn’t be surprised myself. But I’m still waiting for a decent argument.
The Evangelical position is what I think was Luther’s position, that the works of law that Paul is referring to in Romans is all works, moral works as well as ritual works. So the work of the Good Samaritan is unnecessary. Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary saves you for all time no matter what you do or don’t do. Isn’t this how Evangelicals get once saved always saved?
Well, since Paul himself says in Romans that Gentiles who lack Torah law also have law, I would think he is saying that none of our good deeds save us.
But I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here. There is no Catholic/Protestant disagreement on this particular point. Yes, we evangelical Protestants think good works don’t save us, meaning that our good deeds don’t earn G-d’s favor. Faith is what G-d rewards.
It is necessary, because faith works. Faith is lived out in action. Faith without action is not real faith.
The Protestant/Catholic disagreement here is not faith vs. works. We both think it’s both. If a Protestant thinks faith without works save, he’s confused about his own theology. If a Catholic thinks works earn G-d’s favor, I’m pretty sure he’s also confused about his own theology.
The difference between Protestant and Catholic theology is in whether G-d’s favor is applied in degrees, or applied all at once. Catholics says it’s in degrees. Protestants say it’s all at once.
No. The starting point for a Reformation doctrine of once-saved-always-saved is what I just mentioned: The idea that G-d’s favor is applied all at once; we are fully justified, if we are justified at all, from the very first moment.
Then there’s the view of Krister Stendahl, who proposed that justification by faith was intended by Paul in only a very limited way, namely, to explain why the gentiles should be accepted into God’s salvation on their own terms, without having to essentially become Jews first. In other words, justification by faith wasn’t an answer to the universal question, “How are we saved?” but rather to the question, “How are gentiles to be accepted into God’s covenant without having to become Jews?”
Imagine early Christian apostles trying to convince gentile converts to get circumcised. Sometimes I wonder if Paul himself, in his early apostleship tried to do just that and realized he was going to fail in his mission. So then he developed the doctrine of justification by faith to get around that problem.
Stendahl believed that once the Jewish and Gentile communities became totally separated, the issue of justification by faith ceased to serve its original purpose, and was forgotten for centuries, which explains the relative lack of attention or understanding it received from church authorities during that later time. And even in the NT itself… see 2 Peter 3:14-16.
That’s exactly right. Paul is referring to the ritual works of the law, not the moral works. The ritual works would have excluded the gentiles, so Paul is making a point about it. The context of Paul’s point is in reference to circumcision, which is a ritual work of the law. Martin Luther got it wrong.
No he is not saying that at all. Well, technically what he is saying is that by ignoring moral works, you will lose salvation. Justification is a pre-requisite to salvation. Yes, that comes through faith, but you still require to obey the moral laws. Are you saying that one can violate the ten commandments without repentance and still be saved? Can an Evangelical Protestant lose his salvation through sin? Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the answer to that is no he cannot.
If it is unnecessary, then Jesus is making no sense in his reply. Let me quote the beginning:
The question is, how should one inherent eternal life. I believe that is referring to salvation. Yes love God with all your heart, but he also says to love the neighbor as himself, and what does that mean? Jesus explains with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The people who pass the injured man up have sinned, and therefore not saved. The Good Samaritan helps the man and is saved.
That assumes that you cannot lose justification. So what happens to a person who has faith but does not do any works? You say faith leads to works. What if it doesn’t lead to works and still has faith? What if he sins dreadfully, say kills someone (the jails are full of such) or a pastor commits adultery (very common)? Are they saved with faith alone?
I’ve never heard of applied in degrees. What I have heard is that there is a process of sanctification. Actually you are incorrect about all Protestant’s applied all at once. I have been specific in refereing to Evangelical Protestants. Wesleyan, Methodists, Arminians, and a few others (the ones that do not derive from Luther and Calvin) all have a concept of sanctification. They are quite close to Catholicism in this respect. The Orthodox, too, have such a process, calling it a process of divinization. All of these Christian groups envision works as making them Christ-like. It was Luther’s misunderstanding of works that has led reformed Protestants to not having a concept of sanctification. That’s why Luther wanted to drop the Book of James out of the cannon. Remember James: “faith without works is dead” (Ch.2:26). What does he mean by “dead”?
Yes, he is.
(So is Augustine.)
Of course.
Plainly, no. I beliebe I said just the opposite.
A more advanced topic than the present one. The immediate point is he doesn’t have it in the first place without repentance.
It’s not unnecessary. Did you misread me?
Ok. We’re not disagreeing.
No. It doesn’t. Maybe vice versa, but that’s still a more advanced topic than the present one.
What it assumes is that justification is a change in how G-d looks at us. That’s the only thing it assumes.
It’s not real faith. Not real biblical faith. He’s not justified. No salvation for him.
If you insist on talking that way, then no, of course not. James explains this.
If you prefer to talk like Paul and the author of Hebrews, he doesn’t even have faith.
Yes, you have heard of it, because you’re talking about it. In Catholic theology, the process of sanctification is not distinct from justification. In Reformation theology, they are inseparable, but distinct.
And we all agree that sanctification is a process.
I’ve just been telling you the same things James says, and now you think you need to tell me? Buddy, we’ve got a real communication problem in here.
Just start with the basics, ok? Protestants believe in sanctification.
OK, then the whole concept of once saved, always saved is fallacious.
How do you define faith then?
And frankly you are either misrepresenting the Evangelical position or you don’t know it. I get it thrown in my face: Once saved, always saved. I think the rationale is that Christ’s blood (penal atonement) has wiped away your sin, past, present, future once you join yourself through a sinner’s prayer acknowledgement or a baptism.
No, it’s not. None of that follows from anything we’ve agreed on. What is fallacious is expecting faith without repentance to do any good.
Trust. That’s what it means in Greek, Latin, and English.
Specifically, biblical faith is belief in Jesus with a corresponding life of following him.
Faith is the life-change required by what Jesus did. That’s what Hebrews 11:1 says. But an inter-linear Greek will do more good than the English translations.
So you say–to the lifelong Baptist with the B.A. in Biblical Studies.
It looks like you either have been thrown in with evangelicals who badly oversimplify or exaggerate their theology, or you don’t understand it yourself.
Set aside the eternal security stuff. Until you understand the Reformation theology of justification you won’t understand any Reformation theology of eternal security.
But you’re actually pretty close. Focus on the idea of Christ’s blood wiping away sin in one moment. Now imagine that that moment is the first moment of the process of sanctification.
Set aside the “eternal security”???? I forgot about that term. Oh yes. Once saved, always saved; eternal security. If that is not true for Evangelical Protestants, I’ll send them over to you to get corrected. But obviously there is a terminology problem somewhere in your faith.
Nothing of the sort is obvious.
And who said “that is not true for Evangelical Protestants”? What is not true? What are you even talking about?
Eternal security and once saved, always saved. You can read Jimmy Akin, who is extraordinarily charitable in his treatment of Protestant theology. John Calvin most certainly believed in eternal security in its strictest definition. Here’s what I see has happened over time. John Calvin did not believe in human free will, and so a concept of eternal security was not illogical. Within his construct, it could make sense. But Reformed Protestants of today, unless they are original Calvinists, have evolved to believing in human free will. Once you introduce free will in a belief system that has moral consequences, you eternal security is fallacious. You have free will to sin but still you are saved? It’s either eternal security or it’s not. It’s internal logic does not follow. This is probably the reason John Wesley and Jacobus Arminius went completely the other way from Calvin. They must have seen that once you introduce free will, which was apparent from scripture, then sin had to have ramifications.
What is the difference between Baptists, Evangelical Protestants, and Calvinists? Do each believe in free will and eternal security?